Page 4 of Court of Wolves

“Enryr doesn’t want him yet,” the small, blonde boy replied, meeting Maia’s eyes directly. A chill went down her wings, shivering across membrane that used to be silver-teal and now was entirely black, her iron poisoning extensive. It would be good to have some of the volatile rage that poisoning gave her, or to cling to her rage, but the sight of Bryon dropping to the ground had her mate fury scattering like wind-torn mist. She wasn’t fury-driven Maia anymore. She was just Maia, regular and powerless and completely helpless as the black-eyed children ushered her beyond the stone door.

She let her mind obsess over theyetin the kid’s words because anything was better than thinking about what Enryr would expect from her. She could endure it. She’d survived Etziel taking her body apart over and over, had somehow healed from that torture. She’d heal from this, too.

But saints she wished she wasn’t alone.

CHAPTER THREE

Azrail Plunaron tipped his head back to staunch the rapid flow of blood from his nose. Copper coated his tongue until all he tasted was metal and pain. “You’re losing your touch,” he drawled, ignoring the thickness of his voice, the fluid in his throat.

Dulan Brythath drew back his gold-gloved fist for another punch, and Az braced for the impact, wondering if his mate would still love him if he was beaten to an unrecognisable pulp. But of course she would; Maia was kind-hearted and loyal and loved him even though he’d been an utter bastard to her when he was afraid of the bond.

Az drew on a hazy, early-morning memory of them in bed at the compound to occupy his mind as the enforcer better known as the Brightwrath drove his next punch into Az’s ribs. It would bruise, but at least this one didn’t crack. The same couldn’t be said for two others. But at least the Brightwrath had left Jaro alone so far.

Pain exploded through Azrail’s middle, making him gasp out a curse, but he wrapped himself in the warmth of the memory, remembering the gentle path of fingertips down his back, rousing him from a miraculously deep sleep. His rest was usuallyjagged and broken but with his mate at his side, he’d slept for hours and woken only to her loving touches and the brush of a kiss to his cheek.

“Wakey, wakey, Knight,” Dulan cooed, stabbing his finger into the rib he’d just hit until the solid grey-stone cell around them erupted with bright white light and Az gasped for air. He gritted his teeth, panting fast, that name doing as much damage as the Brightwrath’s gloved fists. Az shouldn’t have reacted so obviously the first time the bastard called him that, but he could only hear it in Maia’s teasing tone. “I hope you’re not trying to disassociate. I want you fully coherent for this.”

Where was she? Where had they taken his mate? Had she been cuffed? Was she slumping under a beating from another of the dark saints’ enforcers? The Brightwrath was as much a myth as the Sapphire Knight, and Az had never expected—or hoped—to meet him. Employed by kings and criminal bosses across the Saintlands to keep their enemies afraid, or dead, he had the same reputation as Ismene’s pet psychopath Etziel. Almost a saint in reputation, if stories of saints involved skin peeled from bones, skulls cracked open weeping a poisoned blackness, and innards made into garlands, strung with liver, lungs, and heart.

Although Az had met saints and they were no better. Worse, the Brightwrath was fae and could be killed. But saints? They weren’t just evil and crooked and cruel, they wereuntouchable.Az and his family fought at the island, in the heart of the saints' circle, and they failed.

And now they were all prisoners. Cuffed and collared and under the saints’ total control. To what end? Az wished it was just because of the threat of the saints who’d been reborn within him, his mate, and their friends, but he couldn’t quite forget the way Enryr had called thempets.

“What should we break first this time?” the Brightwrath mused, trailing an assessing glance from Az’s feet, past trouserssoaked in blood, to his chest. His shirt had ripped long ago to show mottled bruising, cuts, and where the enforcer had already begun carving the skin from his chest. “I’ve brought plenty of healing tonic to fix you right up, so I can go on and on for hours.”

“I doubt that,” Az rasped, summoning a smirk from the depths of his soul, squinting through swollen eyes at the Brightwrath. The black-haired giant loomed in a clear threat, with amusement on his ruthless, scarred face and empty violet eyes. Az channelled Zamanya and said, “I doubt you last minutes.”

Before Az could brace himself, Dulan reached up for where his hands were chained to the ceiling and snapped his index finger. He had to clamp his jaw shut to trap the howl of pain when a second finger followed it, then a third.

“I like fingers,” the Brightwrath drawled.

“Too much…information,” Az said through gritted teeth, his nostrils flaring as he let the pain flow through him, the urge to tense up and fight it almost impossible to ignore. But it would hurt far worse if he didn’t breathe through the pain.

“They’re such small, simple things to break,” the psychopath continued, snapping another, lines of amusement forming around those dead eyes when Az inhaled sharply. And it would get worse. It always did.

But Dulan would leave Jaro alone if Az kept him occupied, and that was all that mattered. Jaro had a damncollar.He couldn’t begin to imagine the pain it would put him in if he resisted the pewter’s control.

“Well, that’s a pretty ring,” the Brightwrath remarked, and Az went still. He needed to grit his teeth against the pain but wouldn’t risk Dulan thinking it was a weakness.

“I highly… recommend Vassalaer’s… flea markets,” he panted, white hot pain flashing through him when the Brightwrath slipped the solid gold signet ring from his hand andsnapped that finger too, following it with his thumb. Az had to breathe through his mouth in rough, rapid pants. He prayed Maia couldn’t feel his pain.

The Brightwrath bared his canines in something supposed to resemble a smile. “Oh, but I recognise this family crest. I made a point to learn the insignias of the most powerful families in every empire. You never know when that information will come in handy. And this is the ring of the Plunaron family.Sotragic what happened to them. I hear they were useful politicians before they turned traitors to the crown.”

Don’t react, don’t react. Don’t remember their heads rolling across the wooden platform, don’t remember the roar of the crowd’s approval.

“It’s an ancient family, you know, Kallen?” The Brightwrath’s smile was completely lacking in humanity as he snapped the last fingers on Az’s hand and reached for a knife, his tone almost conversational. “The Plunarons have been alive for generations. They existed during the first war, when the saints were trapped in their inhumane prison.”

Az spat a laugh. It was all he could manage as Dulan set the knife to the slash he’d already left on Az’s chest and began elongating it, skinning him alive bit by bit.Look awayhe wanted to say to the jaguar sitting in the corner of the cell, bolt upright with dull jade eyes fixed on them with no emotion. As if the collar had stripped anything that made Jaro the man he was.

“They were around during the saints’ first attempt at crossing hundreds of years ago,” the Brightwrath said. “A true thorn in the Salt King’s side.”

Thefirstattempt. So this wasn’t the first time the dark saints had tried to break out of the prison where they were locked after the war? And Manus, the Salt King was one of the saints who refused to be reborn? Shit, all the most powerful saints were onthe other side. Azrail was beginning to suspect his side was the losing one.

“And the second,” Dulan said with a sneer. “From what I hear, a Plunaron whispered in the ear of V’haivan leaders, trying to persuade them away from their chosen path. It’s a pity they didn’t manage; that would have allowed the Eversky through much sooner.”

“V’haiv…”

“Oh, don’t you know?” The Brightwrath was enjoying his little monologue as much as he was flaying Az. He twirled the bloody knife. “The plan was to bless the saints' circle on the border of V’haiv, Aether, and Sainsa with blood. It needs to have a nice dose of magic in the blood for it to work, but there were plenty of beastkind in V’haiv, and the attitudes of the people and rulers were already turning against them. No one would have cared much. It would have been a bloodbath of epic proportions, enough to let all the saints through. But the V’haivan king discovered the plan, and they weren’t so keen on sharing their land with the saints, or being ruled by them. So the cunning bastards had beastkind mass-slaughtered.”

---